"Kleiber's is a brilliant reading, full of sunlight and very strong rhythms, with quick tempos, no sentimentality, and a string section that slashes away maniacally during the Gypsy Song and third-act knife fight, but caresses Carmen's Habanera and José's Flower Song…. The singing is pretty razzle-dazzle too. Elena Obraztsova … is a splendid Carmen…. And it's likely that Plácido Domingo has never been better. He looks handsome, the voice is absolutely free and intensely expressive, and he gets a three-minute ovation after the Flower Song…. Alvarez's Don Giovanni is terrific both vocally and dramatically…. But he's also smooth and sensitive to Mozartian niceties… This is 'Classical' Mozart at its most superb."—Classics Today

"A taut and tense traversal … [that] harks back to the 18th century rather than forward to the 19th, with romantic feeling at a premium…. Leonore, in the arresting figure of Camilla Nylund, is slim and appealing, truly believable as a young man.... The Zurich Opera forces sing and play with well-prepared assurance under Harnoncourt's concentrated and elevating direction."—Gramophone